


When the Levee Breaks

by AislingSiobhan



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Angst, Avengers lost, Feels, FrostIron - Freeform, M/M, Mid-Avengers, Mind Control, No spoilers for newer MCU films, Slash, Thanos you beautiful bastard, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:28:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1399687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AislingSiobhan/pseuds/AislingSiobhan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Chitauri won. Manhattan crumbles in the wake of the invasion, people keep dying, the Avengers fall or run away, and in the midst of it all Loki goes AWOL. He’s not ruling like he intended nor gloating: just gone. In his place is the Other. He searches for Loki and the missing Avengers, who just so happen to find each other first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue 00

I saw the title of this (song lyrics, by the way, see the note) used for a Supernatural gif set and all I could think of when I listened to the song was: the Avengers lost… So, here it is. I couldn’t help myself. 

Banner: https://24.media.tumblr.com/4958b584462c6ec82c6038070d4de8b3/tumblr_n3cmq0uj691rxmyv7o1_500.png

* * * 

**“When the Levee Breaks”**

**Disclaimer:** The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don’t sue.  
 **Summary:** [Tony/Loki] The Chitauri won. Manhattan crumbles in the wake of the invasion, people keep dying, the Avengers fall or run away, and in the midst of it all Loki goes AWOL. He’s not ruling like he intended nor gloating: just gone. In his place is the Other. He searches for Loki and the missing Avengers, who just so happen to find each other first.  
 **Warnings:** Slash. Loki/Tony. During-Avengers. Angst. AU ending. Frostiron. Feels. My first multi-chaptered Frostiron! Mind control. Apocalyptic type world. Thanos you beautiful bastard.  
 **Rating:** NC-17.  
 **A/N:** Someone needs to start stopping me…  
 **Full Title:** When the Levee breaks and Manhattan sinks, there won’t be water fit to drink. Lyrics from Take That: S.O.S. That song makes me think of bad, bad things happening. 

_XXX_

**Words:** 1,704  
 **Prologue / 00**  
Loki watched as everything fell apart. 

He had crawled his way out of the hole the Hulk had created using his body as the tool, fingers curled and teeth gritted against the pain as he had gotten to his feet, shaky but standing tall. He lent now against the broken window frame, the very one the Man of Iron had been thrown through, and that Loki had been blasted back from in turn. Outside, the Chitauri fought on, mindless drones like bees doing the bidding of their master despite their own resulting deaths being the only outcome. Loki had made it so that Thanos would not win this war. 

Soon, Selvig would turn off the portal. Soon the Chitauri will be helplessly at the mercy of the Midgardians and the Leviathans will falls from the sky as the portal closed, cutting them off from their mothership and the magic of their ruler. 

Perhaps sooner than he had thought, Loki thought, eyes narrowing at a speck of red in the distance that made its way towards the portal above Manhattan. Iron Man was a blur of red and gold, something white along his back, tiny in the distance and flying so very fast that even Loki had trouble figuring out what the mortal was carrying. And then he was inside of the portal, disappearing into the black vastness of space, and Loki turned away from the window. 

It was time to go. 

The sceptre was lost to him, and that was a good thing. It had interfered with his mind far more than Loki had allowed for, twisting his thoughts and desires and making him act impulsively. He hadn’t wanted Thanos to win, no, but _he_ had wanted to win and this farce was nothing like Loki had planned for. This was a mess, best left to the commoners to clean up, so with a flash of green light Loki disappeared. 

_XXX_

Natasha touched the sceptre’s tip to the edge of the device Selvig had built. The doctor was lying unconscious on the ground, feet dangling over the edge of the destroyed balcony, but body saved from a fall by what was left of the wall. She watched him instead of the portal, waiting for the order to close it and knowing she wouldn’t be able to if she didn’t see Tony fall through it first. 

But there he was! The one person who could be bet on to do the impossible was beating the odds yet again. Iron Man fell, but he didn’t slow down or stop, but Natasha was too busy closing the portal to notice that. 

The Hulk noticed, and he climbed buildings to catch the other man, cradling him carefully in one arm as he slammed back down into the ground (creating yet another crater). With the portal closed, Natasha dropped the sceptre and moved quickly to kneel beside Erik. Selvig didn’t stir when she shook him, but shouting over the comms device she was wearing distracted her from rousing the man anyway. 

“What do you mean it’s not closed?” Natasha asked, pressing one finger to the device in case she wasn’t wearing it right and had misheard. “I closed it myself.”

“It’s opening up again,” Steve’s voice said. Natasha peered over the side of the building, and there he was, a speck of white and blue spandex standing out amidst the ruins of Manhattan, side by side with a green behemoth and a Thunder God. Tony was still down, suit worse for wear, parts of it dented or missing, but Natasha could see him moving even as he lay there. Probably complaining, she thought. 

Almost as one, the five of them turned their eyes to the sky. Above their heads, the portal that had just been closed _was_ slowly opening up again. There was no bright beam of light from Selvig’s device, but when Natasha moved closer to it again she could see the Tesseract pulsing with blue and white light alternatively. 

“Self-sufficient,” a voice said from behind her. She didn’t startled though; she knew the sound of Clint’s feet like they were her own, and she had heard him coming long before he spoke. 

“How do I turn it off?” 

“You don’t,” Selvig groaned, half curled up on the floor. His head was in his hands and his knees were up against his chest and he moaned into his palms, desperate and wild sounding before he composed himself. Hands shaking still, he stood, reaching for the sceptre that Natasha easily kicked up into her own hands so that she could hand over to him. He touched the tip to the device again and when that didn’t work all of the fight seemed to go out of him. He sank to his knees, his entire body trembling, from fear or from shock Natasha wasn’t sure, but she could hear Clint’s teeth chattering behind her, the way they did when he was afraid but too stubborn to admit it. “You can’t.”

“Last time it turned itself on Loki came through, eighty people died and the compound and surrounding desert area imploded.” Clint’s voice was low and strained, and Natasha allowed herself to step back just enough that their feet could touch. It wasn’t a particularly comforting gesture, but Clint’s shoulders relaxed a fraction nonetheless. “See if Tony can genius something up real quick? That portal is opening a lot faster than the last one.”

Natasha spoke over her comms at the same time Clint did on his. The result was Tony frantically shouting back at them, words more like white noise since Hulk ripped his faceplate and ear piece off of him, words garbled and voice desperate. All they could make out were the curse words, and it was Selvig’s sudden prayer for mercy that made the assassins look back at the sky. 

The portal was open. 

And something _big_ was coming through it. 

_XXX_

The Revenge paved the way through the portal. The ship was magnificent, in a cold and frightening way: large and black, with silver spikes along the top and bottom of the vessel to prevent other ships from getting too close; a long nose, curved in the middle until it rose up like a horn, pointed and sharp; it was fat in the middle, with a long thick tail, shaped like one of the Leviathan but four times as large. It was made solid and well, impenetrable, the only one of his fleet to have survived the mortals _delightful_ weapon. 

Thanos rode on the head of it, one hand on the horn on the bow and the other curled around a sceptre similar to the one he had gifted Loki with. His was larger though, longer with a thicker handle, and the shard of the Tesseract at its tip was the size of his fist. Purple skin looked dry and cracked as his fingers curled and uncurled around his staff, knuckles cracking with anticipation. He stood with his legs spread and his knees bent to brace himself as the ship glided down. It moved like a snake, slithering across the sky until it was hovering over the three gathered Avengers, and then the tail came up and in, moving around until it was hooked on the horn at the front, turning the Revenge into an ouroboros. 

It was an unbroken circle of spikes and guns, of Chitauri who wriggled from the gaps like fleas through hair, jumping ship. They fell to the Earth, some catching themselves on the edges of buildings and some flying down in their chariots, but Thanos stayed where he was, like an Emperor on his throne or a gladiator on a chariot of his own, far more impressive and far more deadly than the others’. 

“People of Midgard!” Thanos roared. Magic amplified his voice, so that those trapped beneath buildings or hidden safely out of reach of the fighting could still hear him. His hood was pulled back, revealing a purple face, skin peeling around his mouth, nose and eyes, pulled and torn by every movement, and a bald head. He had no eyebrows, no eyelashes, and he looked severe rather than comical because of it. Red eyes were narrowed, mouth curled up into a self-important smirk, and his nostrils flared at the stench of fear that had permeated the air as his Chitauri set about their work. 

“Look to me as your leader!” Beneath him, the Chitarui took hold of whoever they could catch. One finger against the mortals’ foreheads had their eyes turning blue and their resistence crumbling like the buildings around them. They felt no fear, no apprehension, no hatred. There was only obedience now, swifter and easier than Loki’s sceptre, and harder to resist for it didn’t claw its way inside like Loki had, a parasite that the body wanted to force out, but rather it petted gently at the mind’s protections, waited until the mind was curious, interested, and then it slipped inside, twining together and bonding, until they were as they had ever been. But changed. All of them had been changed, shaken and scrambled and changed, and none of them even realised it, because while Clint had known he hadn’t wanted to do things (that he just couldn’t stop himself despite how he wanted to stop) these people only knew obedience. They _wanted_ to do, because Thanos had told them to. 

“Loki is no longer your God. I am.” A faint cheer sounded on the ground, a handful of the mind controlled people surprised and excited by the announcement that they should have known was coming. “This world is mine.” Thanos raised both arms in the air until they were held at his sides, palm facing outward and the sceptre still in the other hand tip pointed at the growing crowd beneath him. “All non-useful humans will be killed on sight.” 

The people below him were quick to kneel. They dropped simultaneously, like puppets cut from their strings with one fast slash of a knife, to their knees, heads bowed until their foreheads touched the ground. They called him ‘master’, they called him ‘lord’, but Natasha who was still watching from Stark Tower called him “Monster!” 

**XXX**

Well. I wasn’t going to post this until it was at least half-written, but I wanted to know if anyone was actually interested in me continuing? It’ll have 20 chapters in total, and it’s all planned out… 

But I have exams coming up, so I won’t be updating on any sort of regular basis for a while. 

 


	2. Chapter 01

This is un-beta’d and I haven’t had a chance to proof read it since I wrote the last scene, so hopefully it’s ok. But I really have to go to bed now! Enjoy… 

**Words:** 2,732  
 **Chapter 01**  
It started with a soft fall of rain. But the droplets weren't wet. The rain that fell from the sky was less water, more gel-like; thick and sticky and it turned hard when it touched the ground. It only fell in certain places, an invisible line that separated New York from New Jersey, and then onto the other side, keeping them away from the sea and the Hudson river. It came with a mist, like ice in the air that stuck to people's vacant faces that they didn't care enough about to wipe away and so it never melted; just clung there, sliding down and down until it hit the ground, sticking to the gel rain that had fallen before it. It would take a while, weeks at least, before there was enough to the substance to create a wall, but Thanos already had his people waiting, lined up along the border of Manhattan and New York, as far as New Jersey and Rhode Island, waiting with linked arms to keep anyone from entering. 

Or leaving.

Nick Fury didn't know any of this though. He was too high up in the sky to be able to see it, and the people he had on the ground were no longer responding to his calls. Their comms units might have been broken, they might have been knocked off during the earlier fighting; Fury was willing to believe in anything that didn't mean that the Avengers had been defeated. Hell, even if they were ignoring him, that would be fine! As long as they weren't dead. The Avengers were the Earth's last chance of hope, the last line of defence, the pièce de résistance as it were. Without them, Fury might as well fly the Helicarrier over to Thanos' floating ring of doom and hand over control of the State of New York, followed swiftly by the rest of the country and perhaps the whole world. 

There were the Fantastic Four, admittedly, but they usually only rescued kittens from trees and small children who chased their balls under cars. The X-Men were pretty busy dealing with Magneto's attempts to replace all the humans with Mutants and they were all mostly kids anyway, not someone you'd want to rely on in an alien-led fire-fight. 

Nick didn't know what had happened to the Avengers. After Tony had stopped the nuclear missile, and had fallen back through the portal, that had been it. The Tesseract had turned itself back on again, and any sort of communication the Helicarrier had had with the ground had fizzled out, as if it were being interfered with, like the Tesseract was keeping him from overhearing her plans. But that was crazy! Just because Selvig thought the cube had a mind of its own, didn't mean it did, but that didn't rule out the possibility of Loki using magic to keep Nick out of the loop. 

And so he switched to plan D (A being killing Loki before the Tesseract was in use, B being killing Loki after he turned off the Tesseract and C was the Avengers turning it off themselves): working on the assumption that the Avengers had been neutralized and that _he_ had become the thing that stood between the continuation of human existence and extinction, and he got himself and the Helicarrier the hell out of dodge. 

Fury was fortunate to have done so. Because Thanos didn't wait for the gel-like rain to fall enough to build a wall. Instead, he sent the Other to the ground, flying his way from the Revenge to hover over the waiting crowd of thralls on his very own chariot, with his own staff in one hand. From the tip of it came a flash of blue light, and on top of Stark Tower the Tesseract flashed in harmony, like two hearts beating to the same time. It wasn't light that flowed out of the sceptre though, but more of the gel, sticky and thick, but it was fluid at the same time. It swirled and curled its way through the air, like a snake dancing to its master's pipe. Charmed: like the people were. Mesmerized into behaving a certain way. 

As the gel creeped its way out of the tip of the staff, the Other began to fly along the border, allowing the people waiting beneath him to reach up to cup handfuls of the substance. They pat their portion of the gel into place, like builders tapping flat the edges of a wall they've concreted, before adding the next handful of bricks. Over and over, until the gel towered over the people all along one side of Manhattan, blocking the sea. People collapsed as they worked, but like the Great Wall of China, this wall was built over them too. The gel seemed to eat them, multiplying where it touched their skin and eating away until bone was left, until bone too became more gel. And people built with what was left of their friends or lovers or whoever the dead had been while the Other watched. 

The Helicarrier was on the other side of that wall, floating, hidden by clouds, above Washington, New Jersey. They hadn't wanted to fly too far away, but Fury hadn't wanted to get too close either. They didn't know what was happening, they couldn't see what was happening, though the SHIELD technicians on board were doing all they could to restore power to the failed engine and fix whatever virus Barton had shot into the mainframe. Without his one good eye, Nick Fury needed all the help he could get; at this point, he'd even settle for the antiquated backup systems they'd had before Stark worked it over. 

_XXX_

Nick might not have known what was going on, but that didn't mean the Avengers didn't. They weren't out for the count like Fury secretly feared, but they weren't going to be able to do much good in the state they were in either. Natasha and Clint managed to browbeat Selvig into helping them dismantle the Tesseract's new and improved container, which unfortunately meant asking Jarvis to shut himself down so it couldn't reply on its stolen arc reactor power supply. They were quick about it, but not quick enough. Thor touched down on the roof barely a minute after Jarvis had gone silent and the lights had gone out. The backup generator had turned on by the time Iron Man joined them, with Steve half-terrified as he clung tightly to the suit's neck. The face plate was gone so Natasha had no problem deciphering the horrified look on Tony's face that didn't quite match the pissed off tone of voice when he asked, "what the fuck, guys?" and pointed wildly at the smashed in balcony. 

Small tremors made the loose masonry shudder in place, and Clint reached out quickly to steady Erik who looked about ready to pitch over the side of the Tower. The Hulk was making his way towards them, running across the ground at first and then launching himself into the air so that he was climbing up the side of the building like a green King Kong. His fists were bigger than Natasha remembered as they curled around what was left of the balcony, using it to keep himself steady, feet pressed flat to the wall beneath them, as he hung there watching them watch him. 

"Hulk smash puny God again?" He offered, more than asked, but the answer was still a resounding 'yes'. At least in Tony's mind. Thor vetoed that though, and together they all shuffled their way through what had been Stark's brand new headquarters and now was probably going to be condemned as unsafe. Well, you know, if the local authorities had the time for that what with the alien invasion going on outside. 

"He's gone," Clint stated calmly, the first to notice that the Loki shaped hole in the floor was no longer filled by Loki. He was a little too calm, but Tony had other things to worry about to care, because Jarvis wasn't responding. 

"We had to shut him down to extract the Tesseract. I deemed it a lesser risk than the likelihood of more ships following the first one through the portal." Natasha was calm too, stony faced and straight backed, and Tony was too exhausted to argue with her. 

"Right," he said after a sigh, "it'll probably be easier that way." He disappeared down a flight of stairs without another word and no one knew enough about him personally (other than Natasha who had been his PA for almost a year) to risk following him. 

They waited in silence, discussing the pros and cons of Loki's disappearance. Ideas ranging from, he's running with his tail between his legs (from Clint who remembered how wrecked Loki looked every time the Other shared a vision with him) to he's off sucking Thanos' cock (also from Clint who was probably never going to get over Loki mind-fucking him) were a little less believable than Steve's soft-spoke suggestion that Loki was probably regrouping what was left of the Chitauri, waiting for another chance to take them out. In the end, there was nothing they could do about any of the possible Loki scenarios without some major back up, so they only idea that Steve wanted to focus on was the one where they figured out how to rescue civilians and join up with the rest of SHIELD simultaneously. 

"We'll have to split up," Natasha realised, because they couldn't all do both of those things at once and expect to get anywhere. They'd be spotted and stopped, shot in the backs as they ran, unable to fight back at such a disadvantage. 

"Take it in turns?" Clint was talking to Natasha, about something else entirely Steve thought though he didn't question. 

"No. I'll do it. You attempt a rendezvous with Nick. See what you can do." She turned, when the others did, to watch Tony sweep back into the room. There was a small black chip caught between finger and thumb of one hand, the size of a fingernail, but it glittered as the light caught it. "What's that?"

"Say hello to Jarvis." Tony was wearing a new suit, and in the other hand he held a metal suitcase, like a toolkit rather than a folded up spare suit, and Natasha chuckled darkly at the thought that came into her mind. If Stark had managed to build the Mark I in a cave full of scraps, imagine what he could build under pressure with his _own_ materials at hand? Loki wouldn't know what had hit him when Tony finally managed to. 

"We're leaving," Steve informed Tony curtly. "We're going to split up. Gather reinforcements; lay low until the Director can get back in contact with us."

"When I have Jarvis up and running again making contact will be no problem. Just got to give me a bit of time, this suit is a prototype. Gotta tweak a few bits first, is all." He turned to the Hulk and raised a pointed eyebrow. "You might wanna shrink down again, big guy, you'll draw way too much attention like that. Green is such a flamboyant colour," he teased, wiggling his eyebrows as he did. 

On his way out of the door, Tony reached for a bottle of whiskey, managing to fit in into his tool case, though the rattling noise it made was rather worrisome. Fuck, but he hoped the bottle didn't break before they got where they were going. He was definitely going to need a drink after they day he'd had!

When Bruce was back to his usual size, one hand holding up his trousers, Tony waved him down the corridor. "Gather a couple spares. You'll probably need them." 

Natasha was the last to leave. "See you in two days," she told them softly as one by one they left Stark Tower. 

Tony went first, suited and booted with his toolcase in one hand and Jarvis in the other, confident that the Chitauri wouldn't be able to mind control him if they caught him. "If I get the comms. up and running by then," Tony had replied jokingly, turning his head to glance over his shoulder, winking before sliding down the face plate. 

Steve followed afterwards, shield held in front of his chest as he cast wary glances around the edges of doors and buildings. 

Clint was next. He didn't waste more than a minute on the ground, running to a fire escape ladder and using it to scale the building. He worked better from above anyway, as he'd always said. 

Bruce had a handful of sweatpants, kindly liberated from Tony's bedroom, rolled up in his arms. He had changed into a pair too, discarding his torn trousers in the Tower. He ran in the direction Tony had gone, following the light of the arc reactor until Tony ducked into an alley that Bruce didn't really fancy being cornered in, and so he went the opposite way. He'd find someone to help maybe, someone to hide or heal so he wouldn't have to focus on how scared he was, or how confused, or how angry that made him. 

Thor caught up to Steve fairly quickly. He was trying to uncover a man hole, the sounds of screaming from below having drawn his attention. Rubble pinned it closed, but with Thor's help they had it cleared in less than five minutes. There was no one in that particular part of the sewer though; the voices were further off, closer to the collapsed entrance of the subway, but both paths would eventually meet up, a service door would connect them somewhere. Steve went to jump in first, fully intending on finding those people and helping them get out of the sewers at least, if not New York too. But Thor's attention was on the pack of Chitauri making their way towards them around the side of the bank - or what was left of it. 

"Come, friend Steve!" Thor all but roared, "we must fight!"

"No, we're outnumbered and we have to help those people, before someone else finds them." Steve pulled his legs out of the hole, and jumped to his feet quickly. His hand was on Thor's arm before the God could separate his hammer from his belt. 

"I am no coward!" Thor frowned angrily at the notion, scowling furiously as Steve sighed loudly in response. "I am not afraid to fight a battle that I might not win. I will face them, alone if I must, and should I perish I will take my place amongst my ancestors in Valhalla, having fought and died with honour!" 

Steve tightened his grip on Thor's arm, as he tried to wrench it away. Thanks to Dr Erskine's serum, Steve was strong enough to resist Thor's pull and managed not to fall flat on his face. 

"It doesn't matter if you win the fight. That's not winning. Winning is about picking your battles, Thor, not just fighting them. You've gotta make the right choice. That's winning." Steve reasoned, one hand trying to pull Thor closer to the manhole. "We help those people, we still win. We get to live, and meet up with the others in two days like we planned, and then we can kick some alien butt." 

Thor didn't look pleased, but he stopped trying to free his arm. Steve waved a hand at the man hole. "You first," he offered kindly. 

"I do not agree with you, but I admit that it would be a disservice to our brothers and sister-in-arms to continue the fight without them. They deserve to... kick alien butt as much as we do."

"Yeah," Steve sighed, rolling his eyes, "sure." It was just like dealing with the Howling Commandos during one of their 'I'm manlier than you' arguments; Steve had forgotten how much he hated those, but looking at Thor's churlish expression before he jumped through the hole and into the sewer, Steve had forgotten how much he had missed them too. 

Captain America followed the Thunder God, making sure to pull the cover closed behind him. He'd see the other Avengers in two days, wherever Tony told them to meet, but until then, Steve didn't want any Chitauri straying after them. 

**XXX**

Hope you all enjoyed it! I’m going away for a week, so I won’t be brining any of my study notes which means I’ll have to do twice as much when I get back eak! But I try and write a bit of something here and there just to keep me from losing the will to live!


	3. Chapter 02

Well, this took forever. I’m not going to make excuses, if you follow me, you know I was prioritising other fics/fests, etc. Only thing I have to say: I had forgotten how hard full time education is!!!

Enjoy. 

**Words:** 3,361  
 **Chapter 02**  
Marshal Law wasn't something Tony had ever experienced before. Maybe Steve had lived under it once, back in the good old days of World War Two? There had been curfews then, right, and areal bombings, and horrible, horrible sirens constantly wailing. But maybe not, cause Howard had never talked to him about the bad stuff: just all of the hero shit they'd done back them, him and Captain America and the Howling Commandos (and Aunt Peggy). Tony figured there must have been rules though, something to help keep people safe. Maybe marshal law was one of them (or maybe it was only used in backwards Dictator States where fear kept the peace because nothing else could)? Tony didn't know, honestly he didn't care much. He just knew he hated it. 

People with blue eyes stuck to a rigid curfew. Handfuls of them took 'shifts' patrolling the streets, looking for other humans to turn in for a lesson in Mind Control 101, or, alternatively, kill. Sometimes it was a quick shot to the head, or the back as they ran for their lives, but sometimes there was a Chitauri with the patrol. The Chitauri liked to take their time. It was never quick with them. 

Anyone who didn't have blue eyes (and that's blue in the Tesseract sense, not a sea-blue or sky-blue or anything natural) tended to stay out of sight. Tony hadn't seen many of them, so they were either hiding super well or there wasn't that many people left free and alive in the city. He hoped it was the first, but either way there wasn't much Tony could do for them at the time, other than to tell them 'sit tight' because help would come. At some point. 

Clint sighed loudly, glaring at the back of Tony's head. The genius was lost in thought, picking the lock of a pharmacy somehow without paying any attention at all to it. There was a fresh wound on the back of his neck, a little lump just below his hair line, and Clint cringed at the sight of it because he was the one to make it. He'd run into Tony just as the engineer had finished upgrading his suit. He'd crossed paths with Bruce too, who was doing his best to hide anyone he encountered and to smash as many Chitauri as encountered _him_. Clint had kept moving, not wanting to risk being on the wrong end of the Hulk while he was doing his thing, and unfortunately had arrived just in time to help Tony insert some nano-technology into his spinal cord (or cranial nerves, whatever, either way it freaked Clint the fuck out)!

The nano-tech was actually a bastard child of Jarvis and some research Tony had helped a former conquest resolve a long time ago. In lieu of an actual base of operations, Tony had set Jarvis up in his own brain. Which was weird, since Jarvis apparently disliked pain and other human problems such as hunger and, uh, bowel moment, and apparently was a worse nag than Tony had ever realized. But he was still Jarvis, and Tony put up with him because he couldn't live without him (and that was a confession of love, if there ever was one to be heard from Tony Stark).

Tony was working on gathering forces, on finding somewhere safe to hole up so he could call the others back in and get to work on sending Thanos packing. But to do that, they needed to be able to move about freely. For that, they needed a disguise!

"Can't we just break the window?" Clint asked, scowling at the back of Tony's head before glaring pointedly at the surrounding stores that had either been looted since or shot or blown up during the invasion. "Not like it'll make much difference!"

"Hush," Tony whispered, not particularly bothered by Clint's complaint. He'd been complaining since they arrived after all, and at the last three pharmacies they'd hit up too. "It's bad enough I'm stealing without having to break and enter first. I'm Tony fucking Stark, man, I don't _need_ to steal!" 

"Bet you have though."

"Stole a tube of lipstick once as a kid for this girl I liked. She hating accepting gifts, but I figured since it was stolen it didn't count." Tony paused for effect; he could practically hear Clint's unvoiced demand for conversation. "She apparently didn't date thieves, but she kept the lipstick. My dad sent the company a cheque, with four years' interest after he overheard me telling Obi- uh, someone I knew." 

"Oh yeah?" Clint wanted to keep talking, wanted to fill the silence, cause it was too much like something out of a zombie flick the streets lately and he'd always hated horror movies. Nothing moved or stirred unless there was a strong gust of wind, there were no voices, no cars, not even any screaming lately. It was too quiet. Wrong.. Clint hated it. "How much?"

"Bingo!" Tony said instead, as the lock he was picking turned over. He pushed the door open, the alarm already having been silenced by Jarvis. 

Clint went in first, his gun held steady in his right hand and balanced on his left. He had been mind controlled once, and it had sucked, but Tony was the brains of the operation. Just because Loki's sceptre hadn't worked on the genius, didn't mean they could afford to risk a Chitauri (or worse, the Other) having more luck. Nor could they let him die. Natasha had her mission, and Clint had his. 

So he went first, gun out and eyes peeled. Nothing moved in the shadows but them. The light from the arc reactor cast strange shapes against the wall as Tony followed Clint inside, but nothing tried to kill them, so the assassin ignored that (despite it reminding him of something out of this old Vampire show he'd seen once. He really hated horror movies: unfortunately, Natasha loved them). "All clear," he reported dutifully. His comm. still wasn't working, so no one but Tony heard him, but Clint was more comfortable pretending that this was just one more shitty mission gone to shit, than real life end of the world shit. 

"Cheers, Legolas. Give me a sec." The bum-bag Tony was wearing tucked under his shirt gave him a paunch, but that was preferable in the case of being spotted. Let Loki think he'd gotten fat and lazy over the last month; it was better than Loki knowing that they were prepared for him. It was stuffed full at the moment, of medical supplies and pills, ointments and bandages, and most importantly contact lenses. Blue ones. 

After grabbing all he could find from behind the counter (along with a second bag) Tony handed them to Clint. "Stick that on ya," he ordered, before grabbing some water out of the sadly warm fridge. Some of the city had power and some of it didn't, this store was in the second half of that sentence. Tony's favourite place was in the first. He handed over the box that he'd kept in his pocket, left out especially. "Prescription ones," Tony gleefully informed his friend, "not too hot, or too cold, but juuuust right. Put them in. Let's get the fuck outta here." 

"Let's," Clint agreed easily. He was partially deaf in one ear, and only had 20/20 vision in one eye. Not that Clint ever willingly advertised that. Tony knew, because Tony somehow managed to know everything. SHIELD knew because they paid for his hearing aid and his laser surgery (one from a childhood accident and one from an arrow head exploding before he'd manage to fire it). Natasha knew, but no one else did: as far as they were concerned, he was Hawkeye with the eyes and ears of a hawke (artificial or not, he had them). 

He put in the contacts, easily replacing his prescription daily's with the ones Tony had saved for him. When his eyes were good and ready, after blinking several times to keep the tears at bay, Clint looked over at Tony and almost smirked at the way he flinched. 

"Not a good look on you, bro!" The genius muttered. He'd put his contacts in already; generic ones from the shelf, because he didn't need any help with his vision. "Way too weird," Tony grumbled, thinking of the descriptions of Clint's eye colour during his stint as Loki's mind-slave. It hadn't been long enough ago to quite forget about it, especially considering how close Tony came to joining their bandwagon. He patted the arc reactor unconsciously, thanking it for its part in saving him, fingers brushing over the surface a nervous habit Tony had developed since Obadiah had ripped it from his chest. 

"You ready to go, Stark?" Ready or not, Clint was already headed for the door, spare bum-bag around his waist and under his jacket. 

Tony grabbed the empty boxes, and out of habit crushed them up and over-handed threw them towards the trash can. "5 points," he joked, but Clint was already outside and couldn't hear him. "Fine, fine, I'm coming," Tony muttered, as he made his way around the aisles he had come passed earlier until he reached the door. His mouth was open, ready to grouse about being left behind, but it snapped shut as fear sent his heart sky rocketing into his throat. 

Clint was already outside, and he was also already surrounded by a pack of Chitauri. 

Tony's pulse beat wildly under his skin, the back of his neck throbbed around the implant as blood and adrenaline rushed through him, competing to see which one would make him faint fastest. He swallowed, mouth open to make one last witty remark before he died, but again he found his teeth clanking together, surprise forcing his mouth to close over his tongue. He gritted his teeth to keep from swearing about the pain, and instead focused on straightening his spine and shoulders, legs apart and arms straight by his sides: like a proper soldier. Like Clint. 

Barton stood to attention, chin raised but eyes lowered respectfully, bright blue and watery so that they looked like they were glowing. "No sign of non-useful humans, sir. Any further orders, sir?" He barked, very much like Rhodey during one of his few military chewing outs (usually because Tony had fucked something up for him somehow). 

The Chitarui who had first approached him paused, head tilted left curiously. He turned around and, Tony wanted to rub at his ears to make sure he heard right, chittered (like a rat) at the others behind him. The sceptre he held was tipped like Loki's had been with a shard of the Tesseract, less elaborately, but it linked them to Thanos all the same. As they spoke, as they decided, the shard began to pulse, sharply every few seconds, and then slowly, and then quickly, several pulses all together. Like Morse code. 

Like some sort of code, because Clint could obviously understand it. His shoulders loosened, and he cracked his neck by tilting his head left and then right and then left again before rolling it. "Sir!" He nodded his head at the aliens, before turning sharply on his heel and striding away. Tony was left standing around like a spare part, but he hid his nervousness quickly, not wanting to give the game away by acting as anything other than a Pod-Person. 

"Sir!" He copied, with a sharp nod of his head, before spinning on his heel and following after his friend. The Chitauri let him go, without a word of goodbye or even another glance. They had forgotten about the humans already: useless, pathetic humans, so easily out of mind (and often simultaneously out of sight). Tony tried not to let that annoy him, knowing it would be useless now to do anything about it, to say anything. All it would get him, if he was lucky, would be another tap of a Tesseract powered scepter. A hole in the head, if he wasn't. 

_XXX_

When Bruce met up with Tony (after running into Clint and then running some more, cause hanging around a human while Hulked out and being chased by a pack of Chitauri? Not the best idea), the last thing he expected was for the engineer to volunteer himself for patrols. The guy had always seemed more like a hole-himself-up and work-out-a-solution kind of guy: this was more final-countdown-Tony-Stark, giving it all while he still had the chance to. It worried Bruce, a lot actually, because what if something happened to him? Yeah, he was immune to the effects of the Tesseract (mostly) but that didn't mean he wouldn't get himself killed. There was no Loki to flirt with in his penthouse apartment, stalling for time and having a ball, no Thanos to outwit or intrigue with his weapons of mass destruction, not this time: this time there were Chitauri, dogs of war who ravaged first and then accepted punishment for wrong doing later, no apology, no questions asked. If they wanted to kill Tony they would, and nothing, not his brain, his suit, Jarvis, or his weapons would save him. 

So, when Tony walked into their safe house with Clint in tow, both sets of eyes glowing blue, Bruce was relieved to see him alive. But also sort of validated. 

The Hulk was roaring inside his head, loud and angry and threatened, but not by Tony. Because of Tony. That made Bruce think, gun in hand even as he backed away, putting himself between the duo and the terrified group of stragglers they had managed to accumulate as the days wore into months. "Tony?" Bruce asked softly, having gotten along with the genius better from the very start (not that he didn't like Clint, but well, their first meeting involve Clint trying to blow them from the sky). "You doing ok?"

"A-ok, Brucie Bear!" Tony said with his usual flair, a casual shrug, and a stretched armed air-hug thrown in for good measure. "Got enough for everyone!" He pulled a pack of the contact lenses out of his bum-bag and chucked them to his friend. Bruce dropped his gun, hands flailing to catch the object before it fell, in case it was valuable. Fortunately, the gun was locked, mostly because he didn't want to shoot a friend (one of his only friends), not really, but also because what could a gun do that the Hulk couldn't? 

"Contacts?"

"Yup," Tony agreed, popping his mouth on the last syllable. He'd already begun to hand them out to the group behind Bruce by the time the biologist had recovered himself enough to respond. It was less 'words' and more mumble of 'huh', but Tony turned to him and grinned at the noise. "Worked well enough to fool a pack of Chitauri. No humans with them this time, but a lot more in one place than we were expecting. If you see the others, pass it on."

"I think it's time we called the others in," Clint ordered, soft and calmly, speaking for the first time since they'd arrived back. 

_XXX_

Of the members who weren't already there, they found Thor first. 

It was hard not to find Thor, actually, considering that every time he got into a fight thunder, lightening and rain all seemed to converge upon him, drenching one particular area of New York and, like moths to a flame, drawing all available Chitauri there. The Avengers (in this instance being Tony, Bruce and Clint) arrived just in time to watch Thor jump in front of a woman, huddled and cowering on the ground. Chitauri gathered around them, and one had just blasted an energy bolt from a sceptre rather more like Loki's than any Tony had seen before. He wore more clothes as well, robed from head to foot like some desert nomad with a horrible contraption across his face, spiderwebs of metal over his nose and mouth and like lenses around his eyes. 

"Lucas, you have been out sandpeople-d," Tony muttered to himself, but Bruce snorted, having understood the reference. 

"Here you are!" The creature hissed. He turned away from Thor, who had been blasted back three feet (taking the woman he was protecting with him through no fault of his own bar his own body weight), to face the others. The Other (for that was who he was, ruling in place of Thanos who hid within Stark Tower or in his Ravage and left the messy human business to another) scowled darkly at the sight of them. "And where are your fellows? Has my friend," he scoffed, gesturing to Thor who was climbing unsteadily to his feet, "not earned your protection, your devotion, that you would not send all of your forces to rescue him?"

Thor was looking pretty battered. Last Tony had heard, he'd been holed up with Steve in some blocked in part of the sewage system with a boat load of people and some cops, taking it easy. Obviously they'd gone their separate ways, and Thor's angry shout of "I will not allow you entrance!" sort of explained why. 

The Other didn't look particularly concerned by Thor's noble goals, nor by the hammer that was already spinning above Thor's head. The Other threw himself to the ground, a full second before Mjolnir knocked the Chitauri around him over like bowling pins and kept sailing through the window of a deserted Starbucks before Thor called it back. The scepter flashed, like electricity shorting out a bulb, but it didn't stay dark: it got brighter, and brighter, until like one of Tony's repulsors it fired itself at Thor. The God went down again, and Tony decided enough was enough. 

"Clint, get up high. Take out as many as you can." The archer disappeared around the corner they had been watching from, vanishing out of Tony's sight (and certainly out of the Chitauri's) and climbing up the fire escape ladder to the roof. "Brucey baby, you might need to let the Other Guy out to deal with that _Other guy_!" Tony grinned at himself, even as Bruce rolled his eyes and stripped out of his shirt. 

"I don't know how Pepper puts up with you," Bruce grumbled good naturedly, skin already tinged a sickly shade of green and growing darker by the second. 

"You know you love me," Tony quipped back, unashamedly watching his friend change forms. 

When Bruce was ready to go, no trace of human left in the wake of the Hulk's appearance, huge straight teeth grinned at him from a huge green lipped mouth, and the Hulk's eyes (which were the only feature he shared with Bruce, aside from the now ruined purple chinos) were wide as they met Tony's equally brown ones. Still grinning, Hulk asked, "smash?"

"Smash!" Tony agreed, offering a smile almost as wide in return. 

The Hulk smashed. 

Thor eventually pulled himself to his feet and joined in, helping Clint take out as many of the Others' back up forces as they could, while Tony suited and booted. Never being one to waste time, Tony had spent his time in hiding productively. With Jarvis implanted in the back of his skull, and Maya Hansen's theory having popped suddenly into his head one night after a discussion with Bruce about bioengineering, Tony had worked on a new way to always make sure the Iron Man suit would never be too far out of reach. Little bumps under his arms, like the one at the top of his neck, glowed lightly below his skin: mini arc reactors by sight, but tracking beacons in reality. The suit, called by the trackers, flew in pieces from its hideout straight to Tony, moulding around him like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. Once he was ready, Tony joined the fight. 

Afterwards, he’d grab Steve and whoever he was protecting, carry Thor if he had to, and lead them all somewhere safe. To somewhere Tony didn’t particularly like, nor want to be, but it was safe. It used to be home. 

**XXX**

Thanks for reading (to anyone who IS still reading). Let me know if you are glad I’m alive?


	4. Chapter 03

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Real life got busy.   
> Warnings in this chapter for inappropriate/sexist humour, thoughts of suicide, minor, minor violence.

**Words:** 4,355  
 **Chapter 03**  
Stark Manor was not far enough outside of New York for them to worry about having to cross the biological-alien barrier to reach it, but just far enough that it wasn’t particularly dangerous to wander around alone. There was plenty of fresh water, gathered from the lake nearby, fish and seaweed and other edible plants. Animals in the surrounding woods that Clint managed to hunt and Bruce cooked, though more often than not Tony preferred to drive back towards the city limits and raid the nearest (not already cleaned out) convenience store. 

Stark Manor had plenty of space, so for now everyone had their own rooms, even if some of those rooms used to be libraries or billiards rooms or offices with spare mattresses thrown down on the floors. Soon, if the Avengers managed to gather more survivors, they were going to have to double up, or even, if they were lucky, turn each room into a dormitory (but that was Steve’s optimism talking). Tony had a floor to himself. Well, he shared with Bruce, and JARVIS’ new command station (which was actually Howard Stark old but Tony had upgraded it since moving back in), and the stock pile of weapons that he made sure to collect from any Chitauri or mind-slave who crossed his path. 

There were less Chitauri patrols that far from the city, nearly none in fact; just the odd mind-controlled human or two, guns in hand and eyes glowing blue as they fired at anything that so much as twitched in the corners of their eyes. Tree branches and leaves blowing in the wind, animals scurrying through the underbrush, people hiding out at Stark Manor… and, once, an Avenger. 

Black Widow managed to avoid detection, and avoid being shot, ducking low as she ran back the way she had come. She had had a mission, but common sense had aborted it. There was no time to leave a message, or a clue, no time to try again, not this time at least. Maybe not ever. She left no sign that she had been there, other than the broken branches and footprints of the two mind-controlled humans chasing after her. Two arrows cut them down. Their shooter swung out of the tree he had been waiting in, canvassing the area: the nominated guard for that night. 

He jogged closer, nimbly skipping over roots and composts, checking on the bodies quickly before relieving them of their weapons. He tucked the weapons out of sight (he’d come back for them when he was done). Keeping his ears peeled, listening out for any other, he dragged the dead bodies to a wood shed that now doubled as a mortuary. Then he headed back to his hiding spot, keeping beneath the branches this time, instead of in them. 

But by the time Clint arrived at the rendezvous point, Black Widow was long gone. 

_XXX_

They took turns at the Manor, and in the city, and rescuing people as often as they could. While Tony worked on the comms. system that still wasn’t managing to reach the Helicarrier, Bruce followed Steve into the streets of Manhattan, gun tucked into the waistband of his chinos and blue contacts slotted over his irises. Steve wore his contacts like he wore his uniform, with purpose and honour, and pride. Bruce was a little less comfortable about it all, but that wasn’t unusual for the man. 

They kept their comms. with them just in case, and Steve wore his uniform beneath a hoody and sweatpants because it was heat resistant and tougher than normal material (though unfortunately not bulletproof). He left his shield behind though; it was too conspicuous. 

Bruce left his gun with the safety on, and Steve didn’t need to use his either, left stuffed into his sweatpants’ right pocket, a knife in his left and a taser in the front pocket of his hoody. Bruce felt a little underdressed in comparison, but he did have a handful of tea towels and dishrags to console himself with. 

The group of women huddled in front of them seemed more interested in Bruce anyway, which simultaneously made him feel uncomfortable and appreciated. The hardware store they had been hiding in was run down and dirty, windows broken and freezing as cold air filtered in from outside. Bruce had wanted to grab some bleach and tarp, wanting to clean up those bodies a little better than they had been doing so far, if only to keep wild animals away (and the Chitauri) from the scent of death and blood. Steve wanted to see what he could pick up that Tony could turn into a weapon: to keep busy and to keep them out of other peoples’ hands (mind-controlled people to be specific). The group of women had been a surprise they hadn’t anticipated. 

“Why didn’t you try the pharmacy?” Steve asked. He knew there were at least three on this street alone, because he had helped Tony raid the place for pain killers after Tony had finished upgrading the suit (before he had injected trackers into the muscles of his arms and legs). 

“There… we…” One woman started to say, hands shaking until she pressed them against her stomach. She looked like she was about to be sick, and a second woman reached out to squeeze her shoulder comfortingly. They looked enough alike to be sisters, and the second started talking when the first turned her face away. 

“We were going to, but there was a group of men outside Day’s with guns. My brother-in-law was with them.” The hand squeezed again, and again, in time with the rolls of the first woman’s shoulders as she tried to stop herself from crying. “My sister tried to go to him, but I pulled her back. I don’t think they saw us, but the other women did. They brought us here. I thought there might be something here we could use.” She was staring at the tea towels Bruce was still holding as she finished speaking, before shaking her head self-deprecatingly and glancing back up at Steve. 

There were four more women standing against a row of shelves, backs to them and arms folded as they stared the two men down. One was pregnant, and one was only a teenager, but the other two looked about ready to take on the world if they had to. Bruce glanced between them, the two women who had spoken, the cloths he was holding, and back again. His mouth dropped open as he realised what they were doing in the cleaning aisle of a hardware store, where all they sold was bleach, towels, cloths and sponges. 

“We have sanitary towels at the Manor, if you want to come with us? It’s safe there,” he promised. Steve’s face went red all over, and the teenager started shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot looking at anyone but them. 

The pregnant woman shrugged, chuckling softly as she elbowed the woman to the right of her. “They synced up. Only got a couple days to go, but ran out this morning. Typical, huh?”

What was typical was that that was the moment Tony managed to get the comms. working. It started with a crackle, static and white noise, and then a fuzzy sounding voice singing something about “sweet candy” and a “pole”. Until, finally, “Brucie-Bear, Capsical, you reading me?”

“Yeah Tony, we’re here.” 

Steve didn’t dignify that with an answer or a response, instead rolling his eyes since Tony couldn’t see him. 

“I saw that,” Tony’s voice said in his ear. In the corner of the room, a security camera that hadn’t worked since the power was cut off swivelled around to face Steve. “JARVIS hacked into the grid, I can get the power up in small areas at a time, which means I can set off an alarm somewhere else, get you guys out of there safely?”

“We’re ok for now, Tony. The closest watch group is at the other end of the street to us, and we don’t need to go passed them to get back.” Bruce tucked the tea towels into his hoody pocket so he could pull out the box of spare contacts he kept in there too. “Put these in, please? It’s usually enough to trick the others out there into letting us go.” 

“She’ll be a problem,” Tony said, as the camera moved to focus on the pregnant woman. “The Chitauri aren’t too big on keeping a liability around. That kid too, maybe.”

“They’ll be fine, Tony,” Steve finally joined the conversation, voice even but hands clenching at his sides. 

“Oh,” Bruce exclaimed, reaching around to grab another couple packets of cloths and sponges from the shelf behind him. He handed it to one of the women, who took the hint and started passing them back until they were all holding a bundle of items that they then tried to hide in their clothes. “It’ll do until we get to a pharmacy and stock up again, or until we get to the Manor if all goes to plan.”

“What’s that, Brucie?” The comms. buzzed loudly, and Bruce flinched at the noise, but not as much as Steve whose super-hearing had him smacking at his ear instinctively, knocking the earpiece out. “Sorry about that, minor accident. All’s well.” Tony started muttering to himself then, missing most of Bruce’s explanation about needing to get more sanitary products, tuning in just in time to add, “So you’re on your rag then, Big Guy? Is that the real reason for the Other Guy, then, mood swings of radiated proportions?” Bruce could hear the smile in his voice, almost see the shake of Clint’s head in the background, Thor’s confused frown and wide eyes. If Natasha was around… well.

“Yes, Tony. That’s what it is. I’m on my period.” He rolled his eyes, making sure Steve could see him do it. The supersoldier grinned in response, rolling his own eyes at the camera and then at Bruce for a second time. They both heard Tony’s huff of amusement, followed immediately by an alarm blaring from their side of the street. 

“You have about a minute until the group gets passed you, and then five tops until they realise it’s a false alarm, plus another minute to get back to their positions. Make it count, boys.” The comms. went silent then, Tony having turned his off to keep the noise from attracting attention if it whited out again. 

They left the women where they’d found them, but this time they left the camera on just in case, Tony keeping an eye on them while Steve and Bruce, hoods up, ran down the street. They kept low, kept to the shadows and made sure to only start running once the group of mind-controlled humans were inside the building (alarm still blaring). The pharmacy was empty when they got there, deserted, and they hurried to grab everything they had come for (and a few more packets of batteries because Tony might need them: Steve wasn’t very good at figuring out how his suits re-charged yet). As Tony predicted, Bruce and Steve had seven minutes total to pull it off, and they slipped back into the hardware store just as the group left the other building and began running back towards the pharmacy. 

They waited an hour, until Tony turned off the alarm late in an attempt to not look suspicious, and until the group had gone back to whatever they had been doing unconcerned by the potential break in. They each carried something under their clothes, shoved in pockets or under jackets and jumpers, or slipped into their bra cups in some cases. When they got far enough out that Steve felt it was safe, he piled them all into the car they had stolen almost two months ago, drove them to the designated safe parking spot (a corpse of trees around a gravel lot that Stark had called ‘make out central’), and from there they walked through the forest, around the lake, and through more trees until they reached Stark Manor. 

They took the contact lenses out at the door, allowed someone (they took it on rotation but today it was a young man by the name of Nathan who had the honour) to shine a light in their eyes and check the colour before they were allowed inside. Once inside, Clint took charge of putting them in rooms, giving them food and drinks and anything else they needed that could be spared, and then made a list of anything they’d need to replenish. Once it was just him and Tony, he chuckled loudly, rubbing his hand over his face and through his hair, before saying, “starting to feel a little out-numbered, man!” 

Tony snorted, took a sip of his whiskey, and glanced over his shoulder. “Who’d have thought it? Tony Stark surrounded by beautiful women and fully clothed.” 

They chuckled for a while, taking amusement where they could now that the world had gone to shit and nothing was really funny anymore. “Kinda hoping the next lot we rescue are male. New York’s gonna run out of tampons if we keep raiding them all.” 

He would never have said it to Steve or Thor, who would have taken him serious and been horrified (or intrigued, maybe, depending on how things in Asgard worked), but with Clint Tony knew he could make a lewd or downright uncomfortable joke and it would be taken how he meant it: as a joke. “Unless we get them all pregnant?”

“Pepper would kill you,” was all Clint said, but he reached out to snatch the tumbler from Tony’s hand, and downed what was left in it. He winked as he handed it back and added, “then we’d run out of nappies.” 

“Got all those towels Bruce stole? Could make our own?”

Clint just shook his head, and when Tony poured himself a second drink, he held his hand out in a silent request, twitching his fingers until they were curled around a second glass. They sat in silence for a while. When they spoke again, the conversation was just as unbelievable as before, but they were exhausted and terrified and a little bit drunk, and in the morning neither brought it up again, or thought about it. Instead, Clint gave Tony his list, and Tony put in his blue contact lenses, took the list and stepped into his suit. He was long gone by the time Clint’s comm. started buzzing, Natasha’s voice coming through, sharp and quick and emotionless. He responded in kind, and when he was done he turned off his comm. and kept his mouth shut. 

Natasha had her mission. 

He had his. 

_XXX_

Tony wasn’t the kind of guy to make the sacrifice play, or at least that’s what he’d been told once. Something about laying down on the wire, he hadn’t really been listening at the time to be perfectly honest. Yet, he found himself volunteering more these past two months that he had before in his entire life. Maybe living with other heroes was rubbing off on him, or maybe it was the terrified faces that peeked around doorframes at him as he walked down the hallway, or maybe it was because he missed Pepper and his lab so fucking bad he needed to do _something_ , or maybe he was just so scared out of his mind that he didn’t realise he was being altruistic? 

Whatever it was, it was usually explained away as a side effect of Tony being the only one immune to mind control (that they knew of), who could a weapon to himself with just a thought and a twitch of JARVIS’ code, and who considered himself expendable. They others denied that much at least, but Tony usually only shrugged, and brought the first two points up again until they let it drop. 

Now here he was, list in hand, half crossed off, and pockets full of whatever he could scavenge, and ducking into a restaurant because Bruce needed more pans in order to keep feeding the amount of people who were living at the Manor without making them take a number. He was alone, in the sense that he hadn’t been running from anyone outside, but he was pretty sure there was a rat or several inside with him, because something was scratching the inside of the cabinet beneath the oven, shifting and rattling the door as it moved, but other than that and breathing Tony couldn’t hear anything else. 

He was about to open the door, right glove on and repulsor charging just in case the Chitauri had wised up enough to plant bait, but another noise had him turning his head around. Behind him was a man, thin and looking worse for wear, cowering behind the counter even as he waved a kitchen knife out in front of him. 

“G-Give us your food,” the man stammered. His hands were shaking so hard that when Tony turned fully around the man dropped the knife completely in surprise and shock. “You’re Anthony Stark!”

Inside the cupboard, whoever had been moving around (shaking in fear) went completely still, but Tony heard a gasp. Another person, hiding and letting this one defend them both? Or were they both supposed to be hiding, Tony wondered. 

“Yup, that’s me. Can you come out of the cupboard please?” Tony reached back to knock once on the door but whoever was in there didn’t respond. The other man in the kitchen did though, jumping once at the knock and then shuffling closer towards the door, as if deciding whether to run or not, but when the cupboard door stayed close the man shifted back towards Tony. 

“Nice guy, huh?” Tony asked, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “How about you wait outside for me? Bring a couple of those pots and pans, and don’t draw attention to yourself. I’ll deal with Harry Potter back there, and then we’ll go somewhere safe.” The man loudly did as he was told, glancing over his shoulder as if he thought whoever was in the cabinet was going to dive out and go for his throat, but Tony decided it was easier to ignore him and get this show on the road. 

“Ok,” he drawled, dragging out the vowel, “let me in, let me in, little pig.”

_XXX_

He had managed to bully the mortal into keeping watch while he got some well-needed rest. His strength was as it ever was, but his magic was depleted, his core almost sucked dry from trying to hide himself from Thanos’ gaze. The Other could sense him too, Loki knew, despite how hard he had tried to scrub the influence of the sceptre from his mind. He was weak and exhausted; he hadn’t slept well since before Thor’s coronation, then there was his fall, his time with the Chitauri and now that he was free of their suffocating presence he was too afraid to close his eyes in case the Other slipped into his dreams. 

But Loki would never get stronger if he didn’t rest and heal, and if he was not stronger he would never be able to escape them. He needed to escape them, to disappear in a flash of green light. He’d go to Álfheimr first, pass a message to his uncle for his mother (for surely she would be the first to search for him if Thor ever reported his escape), and then to Knowhere or maybe further still. Anywhere that Thanos would not think to follow. A barren rock somewhere perhaps, where there was not life enough to make it worth Thanos’ effort to follow. 

Maybe he would kill himself instead, another fall perhaps, a more successful fall? Or he could go to Jötunheimr and they would kill him instead? Loki had hoped to be taken to Asgard, but of course nothing ever went his way and his plan had failed. The portal controlled itself and Loki had run to save himself instead of staying to find another way to close it. And now he sat huddled in a cabinet, relying on a mortal who couldn’t stop shaking and tripping over his own feet to keep him safe, while he contemplated the easier, most painless way to take his own life to keep himself out of the hands of the Other and his Master. 

Then, there was Stark’s voice and Stark’s name, and suddenly Loki was too much of a coward to open the door and allow Stark to end his life. So he huddled, with his face turned away from the light as the voices faded and the door opened, with his knees against his chest so he could hide his trembling hands between them. 

“So, you coming out, Pevensie, or are you planning on heading further back there into Narnia?” Loki remained huddled in on himself, his face turned away, and he gritted his teeth as he fought down the urge to snarl at the mortal who dared address him. “Come one, man. Let’s get you somewhere a little more comfortable.” 

A hand on Loki’s arm had him lashing out, nails raking across Tony’s face as a flash of dark hair whipped around his face, teeth bared. He launched himself out of the cupboard, crouched into a corner on the far side of the kitchen with his face turned away. Stark stood where he had been left, a hand on his injured cheek and the gauntlet on his other hand useless by his side. Loki was familiar to him, dark haired and pale, but his eyes were green and his cheeks were gaunter than they had been the last time they met, so Tony didn’t recognize him. Loki was glad of it, for if Stark had recognized him, he would not have merely huffed, sputtered angrily about “the thanks he gets” and stormed out of the kitchen without a backward glance. 

Loki stayed where he was for a few moments more, his hand moving to press against his mouth to stop himself from screaming. There was blood under his nails, and flesh, and briefly he wondered if he had hurt Stark badly, before reminding himself that he didn’t care, couldn’t care. He had more important things to worry about.

Like, himself, for instance. 

He had to find somewhere new to hide, in case Stark had led the other Avengers to him. Or worse, the Chitauri. 

_XXX_

Stark Tower was decent as far as Midgardian buildings went, but not nearly as elaborate as Thanos was used to. Not exotic enough. Thanos preferred to spend his time above the Revenge, which floated in the space above Stark Tower, like a bastardised version of the Space Needle with the ring up too high. He left the Other in Stark Tower, with those who were deemed worthy of serving his second as his third and fourth and fifth (or fourth again, depending on whether they wore out their usefulness when Thanos was around). 

Today, he was around. 

Thanos was as he ever was, tall and large, bald with cracking purple skin, outfitted in leather with his sceptre in hand. The gem at the tip was almost as large as his fist, which rivalled the Hulk’s in size, bright and dangerous and glowing in time to Thanos’ heartbeat. He was imposing, terrifying, and at the back of the room Natasha stood up straighter and almost stopped breathing as his yellow eyes ran the length of the room, ran right over her as she was beneath his notice, to land on the television that was frozen with Loki’s face on it. It was the footage SHIELD had sent Tony Stark, after Loki’s arrival on Earth, and Natasha had loaded it for the Other at his command, left it ready for Thanos, and waited as they inspected it. 

Loki’s eyes were blue. Natasha’s eyes were blue. In fact, everyone in the room had blue eyes except for Thanos, and everyone in the room was under Thanos’ control except for Natasha. Even Loki, apparently. 

“After all I did for him,” Thanos lamented, teeth grinding like the spinning of a cement mixer, voice like gravel under wheels. His teeth were large and white and the light from the television flashed off of them as he turned his body around, arm swinging out, impaling his sceptre through the centre of Loki’s forehead. Blue eyes went from staring mockingly out of the screen to black nothingness, his manic smile faded away, as the television flickered twice and went black. “After all I gave him,” Thanos continued. 

The Other remained silent until Thanos turned to face him, wrenching his sceptre back with enough force to pull the television from its wall mount. It smashed in a hurricane of glass and metal and noise; Thanos fell silent. 

“I will find the traitor. I will bring him before you so you may punish him as you see fit, Master.” The Other bowed at the waist, one hand at his side and the other over his heart, in a fist. He waited, eyes on Thanos’ feet, until the Titan took two steps towards him and used the tip of the sceptre to raise the Others’ eyes to meet his own. 

“See that you do.”

To Natasha, it took an age for Thanos to leave the room. The two mind-controlled humans who stood on either side of her were unconcerned by his presence, other than the stupid smiles that had crossed their face: a reaction to the gem at the tip of Thanos’ sceptre. The Other followed him out. Then the man to her right and the man to her left, leaving Natasha to take up the rear. Once she passed through the threshold, Thanos was no longer in sight, and it was then and only then that Natasha felt like she could breathe. 

Her fear of the Hulk hadn’t kept her from completing her last mission. Her fear of Thanos wouldn’t interfere with her completing this one. 

**XXX**

Thanks to everyone who waited patiently, and thanks again to everyone who bothered to read this chapter. I appreciate it. My course is almost finished, so hopefully I'll be able to start updating more regularly from now on :)


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